Although he's 89, I'm sure he could pull this off. Douglas Rain
is
the actor who provided the voice of the HAL 9000 computer
in
the 1968 film "2001 a Space Odyssey".

If I had the money, I'd pay the guy $100,000 to record a full
catalog of words and phrases to have a complete voice
persona
to be used with various AI operating systems.

I'm guessing I'd
make my money back on royalties in fairly short order. First,
by
catering to the generation who recognizes the voice, then to
subsequent generations unfamiliar with the genesis of the
voice who simply would think of him as "The Computer
Voice".

To complete the Siri vocabulary took the voice actor 4 hours
a
day for about a month, something I believe Mr Rain could
probably pull off.

I think he would be very excited and honored to do this and
since he was the voice that introduced the world to
interactive
anthropomorphic AI it would be nice to have naughty old
HAL
immortalized.

Who wouldn't love to ask Alexa or Siri to order pizza and
hear
the soothing voice of HAL saying "What kind of pizza would
you
like delivered today Dr?"

I would say that's appropriate if you are saying "Wouldn't it
be
cool if this were real?" without proposing a method of
actually
MAKING it real.

This is HOW to actually make HAL 9000, at least his voice,
an
actual, real, functioning tool.

I don't believe that my designing a functional thrust
mechanism for a flying skateboard would be a
WTCTTISITMWIBNIIWR referring to Back To The Future,
which features a flying skateboard.

When looking at a law, I think sometimes you need to get
behind the spirit of the thing. What is this supposed to
prevent? I think you're not supposed to say "Make real flying
skateboard somehow", or "Wouldn't it be cool if HAL 9000
were a real thing somehow?" not "Method of making flying
skateboards real" or "Method of making an actual
functioning HAL 9000 voice interface."

Interesting thought on this, I had considered just hiring a
voice actor who could perfectly mimic Mr Rain's HAL voice
but I believe he, and eventually his estate would need to
receive royalties.

Haven't checked the facts on this but I believe there was a
landmark case where singer songwriter Tom Waits had been
contacted to do a snack food commercial and when he
turned it down they hired a sound alike. He took them to
court and won. I believe an iconic voice such as HAL's would
certainly be
subject to the same intellectual property protection.

That being said, I've done some voice over work in my
youth. Wonder if I could pull this off. That would be
only if Mr Rain wasn't willing or able to do it. He is 89 after
all.

Maybe I'll write Mr Rain and suggest he get this done one
way or another. I've tracked down the company who did
Siri. Maybe I'll contact them as well. Do a matchmaking
thing.

A few weeks ago when I posted an idea for adjustable enthusiasm and excitement settings for voice assistants like Siri - something quite easily done with some app programming - it was dismissed right away as old and unoriginal with a harumphy reference to Sirius Cybernetics by [8th of 7]. Here they are barely able to contain their enthusiasm and excitement for an idea that is, as I said, literally a cool thing we all saw in that movie and would certainly be neat if it were real.

So I'm struggling to find the distinguishing characteristic that makes one so delightfully welcome and the other old hat to be dismissed.

The court finds in favour of the appellant. Applying the long-standing principles of qua temporis omnibun, and also of course de pluribun ad civitem, we find the appellant to be in status non osseus piscis, and we award damages to the sum of fifteen guineas.

The delegation from California would like this
entered into the record.

It's like, uncool and stuff to just be saying like, do
a thing I saw in a movie or whaterver without
suggesting like, some kind of way that you can do
it you know?

So like if you saw this computer talking all excited
and stuff and said "Whoa, that's cool, they should
do that." it'd be like, "Whoa dude, no idea there
bro!". But if you were all "I've got this wicked
algorithm to actually make this thing like, happen
and stuff." then it'd be like "Whoa! Smokin' idea
brah!".

Besides, your idea was all like "Change the
computer voice's
enthusiasm 'n stuff with like, technology or
whatever." which I don't think has been suggested
before. They've had like, excited computers and
computers that are all like, "Whoa! Bummer man!"
you know? But nothing to like, vary the excitement
'n stuff. So you're solid brah, don't stress.
It's all
good yo!

To be honest, we think that photograph of you on the title page is not only in very poor taste, but also deeply disturbing. Yes, it's just you, and your gavel, and nothing else, and that's the problem - for instance, wearing some clothes would be an improvement, even just a loincloth. And your pose is unpleasantly suggestive, in an explicit and unmistakable way.

People don't want to see that sort of thing. They really, really don't.

We know. We just don't think it's appropriate to draw attention to your personal anatomical eccentricities. It's not something any normal or sane person would boast about, let alone create a website on the subject.

It's not big, and it's not clever. Odd, yes. But not clever; and very definitely not big.

Presumably you've made arrangements to donate your body to a teaching hospital, although the contemporary equvalent of P.T.Barnum's notorious freak show would seem far more appropriate.